What do food, fashion and fine wine have in common? Surprisingly, the Yard, the Island’s choreography and performing arts center in Chilmark. Connecting the dots requires going to the other end of the Island. First, across from the Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven, where fashion designer Stina Sayre keeps shop. Then to Oak Bluffs, at the Sweet Life Café, where husband-and-wife owners Pierre and Susan Guerin will be hosting a dinner and fashion show benefit on Wednesday, June 10.

In the restaurant’s romantic garden courtyard, dancers from the Yard will model clothes from the 2009 summer collection by Ms. Sayre, whose designs exude (unsurprisingly — she’s Swedish born) European chic and edginess. (Par example, in a photo on her Web site, the designer — wearing a hard hat and rubber boots and modeling one of her own ultrafeminine, tutu-style skirts — is pictured digging dirt at a construction site.) But the details that give her designs that edge are subtle, and Ms. Sayre is known for her clean lines as well as her penchant for creating timeless pieces that allow women to build on their wardrobes from her collections, season to season.

A former professional windsurfer, Ms. Sayre says water is her element. And this season’s line in particular reflects her love of the sea and life on its shores, “It’s a lot about texture, about the ocean,” she said. “A lot of the fabric has a feel about the ocean, like old-time canvas. But it’s modern fabrics of linen and cotton with metal that give it a rustic feeling of canvas.”

Metal? Yes, the designer confirmed, “The metal, it’s a very thin filament, it’s just part of the structure. What it does is give a kind of texture to the fabric.” Continuing on the ocean theme, she noted that there is a lot of white in the collection too. “Like a lot of white cotton voile, which is light and breezy. It has a summer softness, like a light breeze. And I have a few pieces that are silk and metal, which looks like smoke on the water.”

As for the benefit fashion show, Ms. Sayre said, “You know, you do a fashion show to share with the public what you are doing. My pieces are really art pieces in one respect. I don’t call it wearable art, I mean it is, but you get a certain kind of style in mind if you say that. My fashion is very high-end work, couture, and the workmanship is beautiful.

“The whole idea that we, Susan and I, are [working with] is that we’re both artists. I work with fabric, and she works with food and ambiance. We really feel like this is three arts in one.” With, of course, she noted, the dance aspect of the Yard, being the third.

The Yard’s artistic director, Wendy Taucher, agrees. “The fashion show is going to be great,” Ms. Taucher said. It’s all about collaboration. “I’ve been collaborating with Stina Sayre for awhile, and she’s very creative. She has great ideas about the show and what will work; with the dancers and her clothes, it will be kind of unusual,” Ms. Taucher said, but something guests will really enjoy, and it’s a perfect fit with the Sweet Life’s menu and setting.

Ms. Taucher said she appreciates the commitment and creative spirit the Guerins bring to the table. “They are very creative in the way they’ve figured out how to support us. It’s a great night out, it’s not really expensive, and it’s about people who are here in the off-season, people who are interested in the program and have known about us for a long time.”

In particular, the Sweet Life’s efforts support the Yard’s Artists in Schools program, which is growing every year, Ms. Taucher noted. “We’re now working with every school, every year. We’re working with the high school now, it’s a big expansion of the program for us. We’ve developed relationships with each of the principals, so that we’re serving their particular school community because they’re all very different.” The Yard also has a summer camp program for kids (kindergarten through eighth grade) called Creative Theatre with Music and Movement, with week-long morning sessions.

It’s the Artists in Schools program that inspired the Guerins to choose the Yard as the focus for their fundraisers. As new business owners on the Island, after purchasing the Café in 2007, Mrs. Guerin said they wanted to do something community-oriented. “We really wanted to support something on the Island, and we said, why not support The Yard?” After all, Mrs. Guerin said, she had been very pleased with the experience the couple’s daughter had through the Yard’s school program. “It goes back to when my daughter Julia was at the Edgartown school. She wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to that, to the art world. We went to some of the shows, and they were fantastic.”

She was also very impressed, Mrs. Guerin said, with Ms. Taucher. “She does so much. She just goes a hundred miles an hour, and all the effort she puts in behind the scenes.”

The $75 per ticket fashion show and dinner includes hors d’oeuvre and dinner. A selection of wines and chilled champagne will be at the ready, but not included in the price. This is the second of several fund-raising events the Sweet Life has planned for the season, and it’s the second summer the Guerins are hosting benefits for the Yard. Last year, proceeds from three sold-out wine dinners went to the performance center.

They expect the fashion show benefit on June 10 will sell out quickly, so reservations are required.

Throughout the summer, Sweet Life is also offering an early bird package where customers can purchase a prix fixe ticket of $85 that will give them an early reservation dinner at the Café, a reserved parking space at The Yard for that evening’s performance, and admittance to the show. (Ms. Guerin said, however, sometimes Yard performances start as early as 7 p.m., and in those cases, the early bird special could be split over two evenings.) As well, Stina Sayre is offering a 10 per cent discount to any guests at the fashion show benefit, and to any early bird special customers.

In addition to the Sweet Life’s efforts, which should raise awareness as well as funds, Ms. Taucher is excited about The Yard’s honorary board members, an artistic who’s who list that includes Carly Simon, Twyla Tharp, Allen Whiting and Judy Belushi Pisano. “We’re thrilled by the season’s chairs, it’s a really wonderful group of kind of genius-level artists who are supporting us,” she said. “And a real stamp of approval to The Yard’s 35 year history and to the new direction we’re taking, that artists of that caliber are willing to support us.”

The next Sweet Life benefit, the Celebrate the Summer Wine Dinner, is Thursday, June 18. In timing with the summer solstice, it will feature light, refreshing summer oriented wines, specifically Champagne Gosset and Loire Valley wines from Rémy-Pannier.